"Yes, but it's one thing to know of such matters, and quite another to experience them."
"Don't worry, Your Grace. I am prepared to suffer through the entire affair."
His eyelids lowered, as if he considered something. "I thought you were jesting, but you honestly think I will hurt you."
And just like that, any sense of desire dried up. She felt sick.
"Perhaps you do not know what it was like for a debutante before the queen overthrew her husband." A bitter laugh broke free. "Of course you do not. You're a duke, you're a blue blood, and you're a man. You've never experienced a ball where you're little more than a young girl just ripe for the picking. If I'm untouched, then it's not for lack of lords trying. You're the predator. You have no concept of what it's like to be prey, to have very few means of protection but to submit and hope they do not hurt you too much when they take your blood...."
Adele looked away, fighting the urge to say more as she stared out at the passing London streets. He was still watching her. She could feel it. And she wanted to hit something, suddenly, at the memory of everything she'd thought she had buried.
Malloryn shifted, and it was like a snake suddenly striking. Adele flinched, but he had only reached out toward her, gesturing for her to take his hand.
"Come here," he said.
Where? She looked at him blankly, but he caught her fingers in his own and gave a tug. Adele slid across the intervening carriage space and found herself on his lap.
"I am not going to hurt you." He still seemed affronted by the idea.
Adele's spine remained stiff.
It was the closest she'd been to him since... well, that time in the Ivory Tower.
"I am the Duke of Malloryn, and no woman who's ever been in my bed has left it wanting."
"Even me?" she challenged.
Another long, slow, steady look. "Especially not you."
"Please. Don't exert yourself unnecessarily."
"And now I know you're untouched." The faintest of smiles played at the corner of his lips. "It would not be exertion, Duchess. In fact, I think I would enjoy it."
Her heart started beating a little quicker. "You would?"
Reaching up, he began to undo the buttons at her throat. "I have been remiss in my duties, I see. I was quite irritated by your ploy. I never wanted to know why you were so desperate to marry me."
"It certainly wasn't your pretty manners or your charm," she said, swallowing as he continued down each button, slowly spreading the collar of her high-necked green frock open until the smooth, pale skin of her chest was revealed.
Malloryn glanced up from beneath his dark lashes. He was shockingly beautiful, in an unsettling, masculine way. He always had been. And then he smiled. "Wasn't it? Nor my obscenely large bank account? Or the oak leaf laurel I wore?"
"Any duke would have done," she replied, pressing her hands lightly against his shoulders for balance. The shock of cool air against her bare skin made her nipples harden. Adele shivered as he brushed the back of his thumb against her throat. "Any lord would have done. Anyone kind. Or someone like you, who was not kind, but staunchly opposed to the new fashion of blue blood lords simply taking what they wanted, instead of agreeing to a proper thrall contract where a debutante would be protected."
"Someone like me," he murmured, leaning toward her with an intense look in his eyes. Just before his mouth met her skin, his gaze dipped, and then the shock of his cool lips against her throat made her fingers clench in his shoulders.
She'd had lords force her down onto her back on cold stone benches in a garden, where but feet away swirled dozens of dancers inside a ballroom. She'd had them slash at her throat to drink her blood, and she'd fought and cried, and in the end none of it had mattered. She'd grown hard instead. Let them do what they wanted, while inside she pretended it would all be over soon, and her agile mind tried to find some way—any way—to escape this life of hers.
Then she'd found it.
She'd found him, and a rash decision had seen her throw herself at him, at his mercy, at his reputation. And wonder of wonders, he'd actually married her. She'd been safe for months, and it was a wonderful feeling. One she couldn't begrudge him credit.
She'd thought she could do it again, simply allow a man—her husband—to take what he wanted from her body and her blood, but what she hadn't expected was the faint stirring lash of his tongue against the thumping pulse in her neck. His teeth pressed firmly against her skin, a silken threat, and then his hand was sliding down over her breast.
It was happening again.
Adele ached everywhere. It was a horribly confusing emotion, for she had expected pain, expected to endure a little bloodletting and perhaps some groping.
She was wrong.
On all counts.
Her lord husband did not intend to drink her blood. His bite mark soothed instantly as he eased away from her, swiping his tongue over the flushed imprint. Adele shifted with a gasp. She liked the feeling. She liked the stroke of those slow fingers over her soft flesh. It was all a tease. A kiss against her throat, then lower, dipping into the hollow there. Another one painted against her collarbone, then lower. Lower... always lower. His lips brushed against the lace of her stays, and he licked her again, a long, slow swipe that left her breathless.
"Relax," her husband whispered, his breath stirring against her wet skin.
"What are you doing?" she whispered back, and realized his hands were curling around her wrists.
Slowly Adele found herself being lowered onto her back on the carriage seat. She kept her fists clenched in front of her chest when he let her go.
"Testing my theory." Malloryn straddled her hips, pinning her skirts with one knee and leaning heavily onto one hand over her. With the other hand, he brushed the back of his knuckles against her barely restrained breast. "What are you thinking about, Adele?"
"You're going to ruin my coiffure!" she blurted.